And I’ve just got to say – after having just spoken about a selfish hobby – that I am conducting some of my normal life normally here in the northeast in the face of a national disaster taking place on the southeast corner of the United States that is almost beyond comprehension, and which I cannot do much to help. I am aware of it. Other than complain that my tax dollars which should have been paying for the protection of this country was looted on a stupid war for a country no one had heard of, I don’t know what I can do.

I don’t believe the best path to take now is giving donations to the Red Cross. That’s what our government expects us to do – to open our pocketbooks, the same pocketbooks from which they stole 6 billion (in our tax contributions). No, the best path may be to impeach Bush for squandering our country’s resources under false pretenses, leaving our country unable to respond to a natural disaster. Get some of the big money back from the industries that have looted it in Iraq, and get that big money into the disaster relief.

I’d actually heard that the storm missed New Orleans and so I hadn’t paid any attention to the news for a day. A small tv was on at the office I am cleaning out (was cleaning out – we just shut it today) and I saw the disaster for the first time. “So this is what a near-miss looks like,” I thought to myself as clips of broken buildings aired. I guess a direct hit would have simply left nothing at all but some strands of trees.

Update September 2, 2005:

If reports of the status of that part of the country are accurate, the response on the part of the Federal Government has been a travesty. The lack of military vehicles to transport people out of the afflicted areas is appalling. It is as if someone in command has decided to take an approach of letting as many die as possible so there will be less work to do.

Survivors – who remain at risk while they are unable to get out – know it is true. “You can do everything for other countries, but you can’t do nothing for your own people,” [47-year-old Daniel Edwards] added. “You can go overseas with the military, but you can’t get them down here.”

They’re using school buses to get people out. Where are the Army vehicles? Where are the airdrops of food and water? Hospital ships should be in the Gulf (not the Gulf of the third world!). It is times like these that every single cliched image of the military coming into action needs to be delivered as reality.

In Iraq, it would not surprise me if troops from Louisiana begin to refuse orders. If our President can’t rise to the challenge of protecting our country, perhaps our troops will challenge him. Bush has failed this country.